Technological advances in communication infrastructures and protocols have turned standard computing devices into valuable communication tools. Computers communicate with each other, and with other electronic devices, over networks ranging from Local Area Networks (LANs) to wide reaching Global Area Networks (GANs) such as the Internet. Other electronic devices have experienced similar transformations, such as mobile phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), and the like. Today, these wireless devices are being used for a variety of different types of communication. For example, current mobile phone and PDA technologies have transformed these wireless devices into powerful communication tools capable of communicating voice, text or other data, documents, images, video and other multimedia content (generally referred to herein as communications).
PDAs, once the portable calendaring and organizational tool, now often include network communication capabilities such as e-mail, Internet access, etc. Conversely, mobile phones and other traditional communication devices now often include local applications such as calendars, phonebooks or other contact lists, task lists, and other organizational tools. Tools such as contact lists assist the communication device user with placing voice calls and/or directing electronic messages to intended recipients of the communications. For example, a local contacts application can be accessed by the communication device user to help the user recollect contact addresses or other identifiers, and can provide the user with a platform from which contacts can be directly designated as intended recipients of a new communication.
Despite these advances, the recipient of a call or message may not be able to determine the actual identify of the originator of the call/message. If the local contact database in the recipient device has a stored record for the phone number or source address of the incoming call/message, the originator's identity can be determined if that identity has been correlated with the phone number/source address of the incoming call/message. However, if that phone number or source address is not part of a record in the recipient device's local contact database, or if the actual identity (e.g., name) of the person was not correlated with the phone number or source address in the local contact database, the recipient may not be able to determine who is the source of the phone call or message.
Thus, many calls or messages may be received from an unrecognized number or address. When a call/message recipient receives a call/message from a new number or address, the recipient often avoids directly asking the name of the sender. It can take significant time and effort to determine who the sender actually is, and in some cases the sender's identity cannot even be determined.
Accordingly, there is a need in the industry for a manner of determining the identity of a call/message originator where the recipient device does not recognize the originator of the call or message. The present invention fulfills these and other needs, and offers other advantages over the prior art.